Friday, July 15, 2016

When I went to interview the focus group They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot, Dr. Fish was discussing the score for their song. Dr. Fish's focus group intended to add elements of Mei Lander's ukulele (seen in picture with ukulele).

Heather White is a leader in sustainability and an expert on environmental policy. Heather's first lecture was called "Communication 101", which taught about nonverbal and verbal communication, as well as how to present your content.

Heather White guides the students in an activity about communication.

Heather showed the students tricks that she learned from a TED talk about "power posing." The idea of power posing is to pick a pose that makes you feel confident or powerful, then stand in it for two minutes in private before an interview. She also showed the students how to sit properly for both an interview and a TV appearance!

Another speech that Heather gave was titled "Mentors: How to Find Them, How to be One, and How to Listen to your Inner Voice." She gave three main points to both find a mentor, and be one.

The first step was "Make your own mentors." Heather advised the students to introduce themselves to people, initiate a conversation, and ask for an informational interview. "The more people help you, the more people actually want to help you," Heather stated (when telling students to make sure to ask questions).

The second point Heather discussed was to "write down goals and create a road-map." But Heather also advised students to be open-minded and allow their goals to adjust and change with experiences.

Heather's final point was centered around being a mentor to others. "Share your story." Though it seems simple enough, she expressed that the people's stories you relied on helped you, so you could help someone else discover their goals by sharing. "The power is yours," she told the students.

Heather White also did a Q&A with Dr. John Wear and Jocelyn Lyle, where they all spoke about their own mentors and environmental experiences that helped them to shape their paths. All three were asked to share the best career advice they had ever received. Heather told students, "Take initiative. Enthusiasm and initiative count for so much."

Jocelyn Lyles and Heather White before speaking to the students.

"Get to know who you work with... establish a network," Jocelyn advised the group. She also shared the need for young women to not be intimidated by their strong female leaders. "Ask questions," she said.

Finally, Dr. Wear shared a message that was very simple. "You can learn a lot of the things you think that you can't learn to do." He explained further that just because you start out doing poorly at something doesn't mean that with practice you cannot get better at it.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

The amount of energy, the amount
and type of each energy, and what the energies are used for vary widely
worldwide (Smith, p.180). For example, even though highly industrialized
countries use most of the world's energy while less industrialized
countries use much less, countries with the same level of development
vary in the amount of energy they use and how they use those energies.
There are three types of energy use, residential and commercial,
industrial, and transportation energy use. Industrialized nations use
the three energies fairly equally while less developed nations focus
more on residential energy. Developing nations use much of their energy to develop their industrial base. Energy consumption and industrialization are strongly interrelated (Smith, p.180).

According to Enger Smith, "From a historical point of view, it is possible to plot changes in energy consumption. Economics, politics, public attitudes, and many other factors must be incorporated into an analysis of energy use trends" (181). One example of a factor that can affect energy consumption in a nation is increased energy resource prices, which may force individuals and businesses to be more conservative when using energy (Smith, p.182).

Catawba's Center for the Environment and Rocky Mountain Institute are working together at the National Environmental Summit to preserve the environment while educating others about the present and future of the environment, the essential idea of environmentalism. RMI's goal is to help the United States transition off of coal, oil, and nuclear energy by 2050. Both Catawba and the Rocky Mountain Institute believe that this transition can be done profitably. Part of RMI's plan to transition the United States off of these energies is to rethink how transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity are done.

How can we help? Well, we can take to activism. Rocky Mountain Institute has listed five types of useful activism that can help with environmentalism: Lifestyle, Political, Educational, Grassroots, and Economic Activism. The most important part of changing minds is listening to the individual's interest.

Everything in the environment is
connected, both the animals and the habitats. In the human species, eyes
are near the top of the body yet most eye colors can be found on the
ground (i.e. green, brown, blue); this creates an environmental
juxtaposition.

This camp offers an open setting which helps the process of critical and abstract thinking.